A stereoscopic viewing experience, which can also be called a three-dimensional (3-D) viewing experience, can be achieved by presenting different views of a scene to the left eye and the right eye of an observer. These different views represent the scene concerned viewed from slightly different angles, which provides an impression of depth. A stereoscopic rendering system needs to receive data from which the system can derive the different views that need to be presented to a viewer. This stereoscopic data may comprise, for example, a pair of visual images, one of them representing a left-eye view, and the other one representing a right-eye view. This is a classical approach.
Alternatively, stereoscopic data may comprise a so-called depth map that is associated with a visual image. A depth map can be regarded as a set of values, which may be in the form of a matrix. Each value relates to a particular area in the visual image and indicates a distance between a virtual observer and an object in that area. The area concerned may comprise a single pixel or a cluster of pixels, which may have rectangular shape, or any other shape for that matter. A processor is capable of generating different views, which are required for stereoscopic rendering, on the basis of the visual image and the depth map associated therewith. The depth map may be completed with occlusion data that provides additional information about background objects, which are at least partially occluded by foreground objects in the visual image.
The document EP 0 888 018 B1, granted on Jun. 7, 2006, relates to an optical disk in which stereoscopic videos are recorded. A signal for the right eye of a stereoscopic image and a signal for the left eye are compressed into MPEG signals by MPEG encoders (MPEG is an acronym for Moving Pictures Experts Group). These signals are interleaved in a particular fashion so as to obtain a so-called interleaved block, which corresponds with a frame group. The interleaved block is recorded for more than one revolution to more than ten revolutions of the optical disk. It is claimed that the optical disk provides a mono-vision (2-D) with an existing reproducing device, and can provide a stereo-vision (3-D) with a new reproducing device.